Book Review: Ad Women

Ad Women: How They Impact What We Need, Want, and Buy by Juliann Sivulka
Hardcover, 415 pages, Prometheus Books

It is possible to perceive history as a series of technological breakthroughs, followed by a cultural struggle to adapt to those breakthroughs. So the history of advertising is peculiarly fascinating, because what advertising does is mediate between technology and culture. It tells you the value of new technology, why you want it, why it will make you happy, why you should look down upon people who don’t use that technology. Think about the cultural impact of things like deodorant, for example; how we (in the U.S.) are faintly nauseated by those who don’t use it: That’s advertising.

Ad Women‘s specific subject matter is made clear by the title. The book addresses women in two ways: As advertising professionals, looking at “women’s work” in the advertising field from the 1860s to the present, with biographical sketches of many advertising women, and as consumers and subjects of advertising.

The business of advertising came into being post-Civil War. I think we’ve all heard many times that wars create new technologies, but I’ve never seen it illustrated so clearly as in reading this book, where the Civil War, WWI, and WWII each changed available products and therefore how they should be presented to the public. The Civil War created the need for mass production of goods, and means to transport them, to provide for the enormous number of soldiers in the field. Post-war, this meant that, for the first time in history, there were a great many products that were cheaper to buy than to make from scratch. And advertising was born.

Because advertising was a new industry, there were no pre-set gender roles, and many women who wanted to use their brains found it a rare and precious outlet. The first part of the book, outlining what the opportunities were for women in the early days of advertising, how gender roles came to become a part of those opportunities, and who some of the ad women were, is absolutely fascinating.

In addition, women were making 80% of household purchasing decisions, and so advertisers had to think about women and women’s roles in a serious way. Every stereotype”proper housewife, loving mother, romantic dreamer”had to be explored for its advertising impact.

Later, the book bogs down a bit. By the post-WWI section, the biographies are short and frequent. So-and-so did such-and-such. She was born in this place, moved to that other place and got an advertising job there. She married and got promoted and then quit or didn’t quit. There are far too many of these brief sketches which do little to illuminate the industry.

By the Mad Men era, the book picks up again. Opportunities for women are changing, as are the ways women are sought after as consumers. Throughout the book, specific campaigns are discussed, and Basketcases will love the detailed treatment of the “I Dreamed…” Playtex Maidenform campaign.

Author Juliann Sivulka is very careful not to equate white, middle-class women with all women, and devotes a chapter to African-American women. Ethnic-focused advertising in other communities is also addressed. She is sometimes extraordinarily dry, like deadly dry, but her subject matter is so interesting it’s worth slogging through the dull parts. Usually. There were some paragraphs I skipped right past.

I don’t often love, and sometimes actually dislike, her treatment of feminism. She’s dismissive of many women’s issues, but she does raise them, and you can think them through yourself because she presents so much interesting material. A lot is laid out in a very factual manner for the reader to sift through.

How much you might want to read this book depends upon how interested you are in the subject matter. Basketcases are likely to be quite interested. The writing is not lyrical, and the conclusions aren’t always impressive, but there’s really so much here and I am really glad to have read it.

In a future post, I’ll address specific quotes and information found in this book that I think will be fun and interesting.